When a patient is admitted to a healthcare facility such as a hospital, the patient is frequently provided with one or more medical devices at his/her bedside that perform various medical functions. For example, an infusion pump at the bedside may infuse fluids, medication or nutrients into the patient's circulatory system. Another example is that a patient monitor may measure physiological data of the patient such as vital signs.
Such medical devices are frequently arranged for generating alarm signals to alert a caregiver of the patient to an occurrence of events which are associated with the performing of the medical function. For example, an infusion pump may be arranged for generating an alarm if a bag connected to the infusion pump runs empty. Accordingly, a nurse may be alerted to replace the empty bag. Another example is that a patient monitor may generate an alarm if the patient monitor determines that the state of a patient is deteriorating, e.g., by a heart rate of the patient becoming increasingly irregular. Yet another example is that the patient monitor may generate an alarm if a system malfunction occurred.
Such medical devices typically generate auditory alarms to alert a caregiver in the room of the patient or a caregiver being within hearing distance of the room. In fact, national regulations may stipulate that bedside medical devices generate auditory alarms for critical events. For that purpose, the medical device may comprise a loudspeaker.
Various systems are known for relaying such alarms to a mobile device of a caregiver to ensure communication of the alarm to the caregiver. For example, a system titled Philips IntelliSpace Event Management is said to have to following functionality, according to a document titled ‘Solution brochure’ downloaded on Jul. 06, 2013 from http://www.healthcare.philips.com/us_en/products/hi_pm/products/IntelliSpace/Event_management. When the primary caregiver is out of range or unavailable to answer an alert of a medical device, the product is said to enable a message to be routed to alternative caregivers or device(s). Moreover, a condition needing immediate attention can be escalated and routed to multiple qualified responders. User-controlled filters allow for customization of where critical messages should be routed. Alerts can be prioritized based on a clinical role of the caregiver. An alert delay can be configured to prevent a message from being sent to the caregiver's device if an alarm is cancelled before the end of the delay period.
US 2011/0202495 A1 provides a method and system for adjusting an alert rule used to indicate a status of a patient. It is said that some alert rules may also trigger calls to data mining models to apply predictions in real time by executing a prediction model.
US 2007/0257788 A1 provides a system and method for providing a safety alert for a device. In an embodiment where the device comprises an infusion pump, if an incorrect infusion rate was set, an alarm would be activated if the infusion rate had not been corrected within 30 seconds. The alarm would not be inactivated until the rate had been corrected and/or additional steps had been taken. An e-mail would also be sent to the pharmacist notifying him/her of an incorrect infusion rate.
However, the abovementioned systems do not address the following situation. When a patient is admitted to a healthcare facility, he/she frequently sleeps at the healthcare facility. It is well known that the quality of sleep is an important factor in the patient's healing process. When the patient sleeps well, the recovery time, e.g., after a surgery, is frequently shortened. Unfortunately, many patients in healthcare facilities experience insufficient quality of sleep. A reason for this is that the healthcare environment is quite different from what patients are used to at home. In particular, ambient factors such as light levels and sound levels can play a role in keeping patients awake.